Well the round of 16 is over and we can reassess the situation. South America continues its mighty run, of the five South American teams who entered this round, four are in the quarterfinals. The only South American team that lost was knocked out by another South American team. This lends more weight to Brazil winning the entire World Cup.
My predictions were correct 3/4 of the time. I didn't expect Spain to beat Portugal, but they did. It was a close game, but Spain did seem to have the edge in skill. The USA should have beaten Ghana but a stupid error at the very beginning of the game made it an uphill battle. The USA had more chances and shots on goal, but Ghana scored almost every time it had a chance. The result was a 2-1 loss in overtime. The resulting quarterfinals have a lot of fun matchups:
Netherlands vs. Brazil -- The Netherlands have been solid but they show more weak points than Brazil. Furthermore, this is clearly South America's World Cup. Brazil will win.
Uruguay vs. Ghana -- Uruguay will win this handily. Ghana isn't that good a team and someone has to knock them out. Uruguay isn't as good as Portugal but due to the caliber of their opponents should cruise to the semifinals.
Argentina vs. Germany -- Argentina will win. Both Germany and Argentina have looked good so far, but this is South America's year. Argentina has looked almost unstoppable in their games up until now, whereas Germany has already lost once to Serbia.
Paraguay vs. Spain -- Paraguay hasn't shown anything exceptional in its games up until now, and is going up against the strongest team in Europe. Spain will win this one and keep Europe in the World Cup.
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